11 months!

I know I keep saying this but I can not believe how fast my little guy is growing up! He has such a great little personality and I love to watch him explore and experience 

new things! This month Rand has mastered waving "bye-bye" and clapping! 

He also signs "milk" and has started to repeat whatever  Daddy says, like "roar!" 

Here are some of my favorite pics from this month!

 Bitche, France

 craft time at Lapsit 

Burg Frankenstein & Worms, Germany

Spring is here and I am ready to travel again! Even though the day started out junky and raining, we drove out for todays adventure to Frankenstein's Castle and Worms! 

Our first stop was Burg Frankenstein. It was about an 80 minute drive from the KMC area. Parking was free and it was a short hike to the entrance. To see the ruins, it is "free" but they suggest a donation of a euro per person. Burg Frankenstein is a neat site to see but it is a very short visit. If it is nice, there are tons of hiking trails around the area. There is also a restaurant and restrooms right next to the ruins.

 Our next stop was Worms! Worms is about 35 minutes south of Burg Frankenstein so its only 50 minutes from the KMC area. 

 Nibelungen Bridge Tower 

 a memorial to the German soldiers who died in WW II 

Luther Memorial

St. Peter’s Cathedral (Dom St. Peter) 

We visited the Jewish cemetery before heading back home. 

Heiliger Sand is the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe. The oldest gravestone is dated 1076.  

 Before we headed back home, we stopped to get some delicious eis at Eis Vannini!

DIY Sensory Board

I am all about crafts and helping my child learn and explore. I have tons of different materials laying around my house and thought it would be a fun project to make a sensory boards for Rand. 

Supplies:

foam board

jar lids

scraps of different types of materials

hot glue gun with sticks

I carfeully glued each material to a different lid. Make sure to glue them  securely on the top, sides and under the lip of the lid. After I glued all the materials on the lids, I laid them out on my foam board and glued them on. 

Here are some suggestions on what to use for different materials. Fabric stores are great to look for material for this project.  A remnant can go a long way.  Also look at the craft supplies and hardware stores.

-lace

-tassel trim

-silk or satin material

-dried pasta

-rope (I glued them in a spiral to cover the entire lid)

-glitter (I used some glitter paper from my scarp booking supplies)

-cotton balls

-tin foil

-an old teddy bear for "fur"

-feathers

-sandpaper

-sponges or brillo pads

Bitche, France

During these cold, winter months I have been doing tons of research on places we could explore and see in one day. I have been looking forward to Spring for months now and with my list in hand, we ventured out on our first Spring day trip... Bitche, France! 

Bitche, France is less than an hour from the KMC area. We were recommended by a friend to take the scenic route so we first headed up to Vogelweh to get onto 270 towards Pirmasens. It really was a beautiful drive and only added about 20 minutes.

When we first arrived in Bitche, we ate lunch at a little bakery called Antoine. No one spoke English and high school french from over 10 years ago can only get you so far, but we were able to get a delicious meal. After our lunch we drove around the city a little bit before heading to the citadel.

There is parking right near the entrance (and its free). The citadel is NOT stroller friendly and the tour is mostly inside and it is very dark and very cold so bundle up! We decided to do the audio tour (10 euro each) and thought it was well worth it. The audio tour is run by Bluetooh so when you walk around, you start hearing the guide. Once you enter the underground tour, there is a movie that plays different clips in each room. It was told from the point of view of a French soldier during the Franco-Prussian war.  The movie is very interesting. It is not very child friendly, in one of the first scenes after the introduction, you see dirty, messy, chaotic war scenes. Their was also a scene where soldiers were rounding up women and children, and clearly pulling a screaming woman away from her children and forcing her to face the firing squad, on the spot. It then switches to a naked person running away covered in blood.

The citadel was once an old castle but was destroyed after the capture of Bitche by the French in 1624. The citadel was restored and strengthened in 1740 into a fortress. There is much history in this site, including a 230 day siege.